Remember the Times
by teja kirana
Summary: Chase and Adams have been through a lot before they started being Chase and Adams. I intended this fic to be a one-shot, but I guess I can't get enough of them. XD
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I do not own House or any of its character. Because if I do, House wouldn't be ending just yet. Lols.

1\. The Hopeless Romantic

Dr. Jessica Adams once dreamed, hoped and longed for a moment like this. Not much of extravagant moment or anything romantically significant act, but just a simple moment that secured her from traumatic thoughts, soothed her from previous dramatic heartaches, relinquishes the blissful taste of possible romance and almost promised her of unexpected happiness and content. She had long came to terms with herself that she is one of the suckers of true love and a hopeless romantic, while incredulously intellectual, she was often at loss when it comes to romantic relationships. How, then, did this work between them? Adams stared into the flickering flame in the fireplace and after a while, she caught herself smiling.

However it happened, it worked. No matter how long did it take to blossom, it blossomed. It grew a root in a place near impossible. The blood, tears and time were worth it. She made sure everything worthed. She calculated every possible action, letting loose just at the right moment in the right amount and keeping control when it matters while staying in character. It hadn't been easy, but it had never been impossible. To be quite honest, the hardest part of all this is to keep reassuring herself that it's okay to let this nurture itself and for her to just be herself. After all, that's what he likes the most about her. Herself.

Adams was fiddling with the blanket that covered her lower limbs when she felt the embrace around her tighten a little. "I think your ex-husband is mad." He said with a huff escaped with a tone disbelief mixed with relief. "You got a hot wife who's smart, filthy rich and a hopeless romantic. You don't just blow chances like that. Do you know how many women I have to sleep with to come across a woman like that?" He started his rant.

"Have to? You chose to sleep with those women. It's called your self-destructing phase after your divorce with the romantic interest of your workplace induced by your justified euthanization/murder of a patient of yours. You are a damaged romantic." She corrected with the usual tone of bemusement and turned to him, now sitting on his lap.

She let him rant some more about how stupid and dangerous his lifestyle before engaging in a relationship with her had been. She let him wondered down to the path if House ever knew they finally got together, will they be celebrated or mocked endlessly. In some way, it soothed him. The ranting lets him talk his mind and she let him. She is honoured that he no longer kept her away. Sometimes the ranting turns sour and turned into self chastising and bantering over the should and could have been. It is often one sided too, and she let him. In some way, it justified to him that he deserved all this. In some other way, it gave him reassurance that this is okay. Because by the end of it all, she is always there to wrap her arms around his neck and cooed to him, "You love me, I love you back. I'm hopeless romantic like that."

Of course, many things had happened before they get to where they are currently; comfortably cuddling by the warmth provided by the fireplace. Devastating things, awe-inspiring things and beautiful things had happened. Rains of emotions have been showered upon them multiple times before they come to term of accepting their feelings, let alone embracing it. There were times when Adams herself almost lost faith in being hopelessly romantic. To almost stop caring about her possible love life, she almost moved out of the country for the sake of filling in the medical relief mission. Perhaps, if she thought it through, that's when it all began. That was the time he honestly professed his love for her. That was the day he vowed that this time, he wasn't playing games too. It had to be the most romantic gesture she had ever received because on that day, his ex-wife sat her down and told her, "He will stop asking you not to leave the team, to leave him, eventually, but ask yourself this; do you really want him to stop? I know his moves better than anyone else. But what I saw today, I've never got that look before. This is not some move. He didn't have this planned. He's at his wit's end."

"I married two madmen." She laughed heartily whilst maintaining her position on his lap. "Is that a bless or a curse?" She asked as she looked lovingly into his eyes.

"Well, I must admit I am madly pretty." He beamed. "Also, pretty madly in love with you."

She crawled ontop of him and wrapped her arms around him. "You've become a hopeless romantic, Dr. Robert Chase."

"A courtesy to you, I'd happily say." He replied softly as he pulled her down closer to him.


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: I don't own House.

2\. Mischief Managed.

Chase could not believe that he of all the people would be falling for this kind of trap. "I guess that's what happened when Taub and Park decided to join forces and Foreman gave them his blessing." He muttered. He seriously thought, now that House was out of the picture, the staff, at least two third of his Diagnostic team will leave him and Adams alone. They are old news. House tried matched them before to no avail. They just don't click that way. Even more so after he turned down Adam's offer to get drinks with her ages ago. Apart from being equally pretty and good-looking, Chase and Adams shared nothing else in common. What's up with these people trying to get them together, then?

"Park, I want you to tell me what exactly do you expect to achieve from me doing this?" He determined to unravel the mysteries once and for all. He was lucky that it so happened he got in the same elevator with his employee that morning.

"Satisfaction." She replied coolly.

"You can't be serious. What kind of satisfaction do you, Taub and Foreman share in common?" He asked with the ever easy smile spread across his face.

"You don't think you can do it?" Park said, sounding a little challenging than she intended to. "You sounded so sure of yourself that you can pull it off when you agreed to Taub's term of loosing a chess match against him that other day." Came the ever snide remark from the small doctor. "What changed your mind?"

"I didn't."

"I just got back from my kids' daycare and guess who I found-" Taub trailed when he saw his boss and his colleague in a middle of non-medically relevant conversation that looked intriguing. "What did I miss?" He asked, immediately disregard the file in his hold.

"Chase is chickening out of the deal." Park told him.

"You can't do that, we've got a deal. Now, be a man and honour the deal." He hurried a dissatisfied huff.

"I'm not." Chase retorted equally fast. "What's the story?" He gestured to the file in Taub's hand to no avail.

"Will you kiss me?" Chase asked Adams bluntly during lunch time at the cafetaria that day. After much thoughts and unsuccessful attempt at formulating a plan to smoothly ask Adams, he decided to just blatantly ask her about it.

'Excuse me?' Will be the correct response if Adams hadn't already took a big bite of whatever she's having for lunch. It looked like a double cheese hamburger, although he doubted the double cheese. Adams took her time chewing her food, partly to compensate the unladylike action she just made and partly to mellow the out of bound and not to mention inappropriate question. She was hoping that by the time she was done with swallowing that now bolus chunk of food, the moment would pass and Chase will move to a more medically relevant subject so the question was no longer relevant. But Chase seemed like he's not budging until he got an answer. "Why?" So she decided to ask.

"You know, as a preposition."

"No, I don't know." She answered. "What is this, a kindergarten?" She scoffed.

"So, you're not gonna kiss me? Never?" He decided to press the matter to clear things up for the level he was in.

"Unless some turns of event happened and you and I are an item, which I highly doubt will ever happen because seriously, have you not notice our patterns of social activities, and in such cases only will I ever indulge to such action." Adams crossed her arms while stating it matter of factly.

"That's a bit insulting. Lucky that you're hot, so it's easier to put up with."

"When will you learn that both of that question and that statement are insulting?"

Ouch.

The rest of the day went by quite normally. Taub was still clocking between being a doctor and a dad, and kept on getting better at it. Park was still seeing her steady boyfriend she met through a holiday party. Chase and Adams are still Chase and Adams.

Chase spent the next three days getting rejected with the consistent tone each time he asked Adams, even when he came clean about the deal. He spent the next three days formulating a plan to get her to kiss him, only to result in her rejecting him again. He then spent the rest of the week trying to find a new angle for him to get to Adams.

Then, Chase escalated to the phase where he quitted worrying about the deal so much but somehow caught up and tangled in a web of trying to discreetly getting to know Adams. He even got to the extent of following her home that week. What he found was Adams was in fact had a completely different social activities than him. He found out that she volunteered to three different clinics, went by the same area of neighbourhood on the opposite direction to her home just to give little kids on the streets there something nice. Sometimes she dropped them flowers, sometimes she distributed candies and Chase took a wild guess that she gave them toys on a very special occasion.

He also found out that her social circle whenever she's not giving herself to charity was by far out of his league. Not to mention the ladies she's been talking to when he followed her to an evening hi tea were all a lot more attractive and good-looking than the girls he used to pick up at his functions and parties. The men in the room were no justice neither. Their good looks and chivalry somewhat degraded Chase from 'super hot and pretty' to 'you're not that pretty, but we guess you're pretty enough to join our class'. No wonder Adams was indifferent to his charms before.

'This woman is a living wonder. Her husband was downright mad to cheat on a woman like that.' He thought to himself along his way back to his place after that.

"Damn you all! You've been planning on this all along, haven't you?" Chase stormed into Foreman's office when he saw Taub and Park were there too with Foreman.

"The only thing that's planned all along is to proof that there's something non-medically relevant that I can do better than you, hence the chess. I don't really care that much about the deal, but the hospital is dying to see some of you two, so I figure, why not just give them some?" Taub countered with his usual half smile.

"You're not actually mad, are you?" Park asked.

"I dunno. Is there a reason that I shouldn't?"

"When did you had this emotional overhaul?" Foreman asked.

"About two days ago. Why?" He replied.

"You're not mad because we played you. If you are, you'd be barging in here two days ago. You're mad because you realised that you're just really late for the party." Foreman as almost as boringly as ever. "If you like her, go and tell her. Do what you have to do. You've got two choices, you either tell her, or prepare to plan for her farewell party." He added.

"She mentioned to me when we're doing the lab test that she's gonna give the Doctors without Borders a go." Park explained.

The news hit Chase harder than the whole hospital crumbling down on him and stung sharper than the scalpel that pierced his heart muscle. 'She's leaving.' Was the only information he could register into his brain at the moment. "I have to go."

"Adams. I need to talk to you after the examination." He peered his head into the examination room that Adams was in. He waited outside until the patient exited the room and told him Adams will be waiting for him inside. They exchanged a brief greeting look when Chase entered the room and he started to question himself for the umpteenth time how did he miss this hot now-employee is a beautiful and good hearted woman. "I heard you're signing up for the Doctors without Borders. Are you planning to tell me? Or are you just gonna go all of the sudden, leaving nothing but a letter on my desk?" He asked.

"You've been talking to Park about me, then. Probably asking for insights to get me to kiss you and relieve you of the deal." She hold back a sniffle. "I thought on telling you as the symbol of authority for the department I work in; after I actually signed up. I haven't decided on when to sign up yet." She told him.

"Oh." Chase managed to say.

"I guess Park left that part out, because I haven't told her that." She somehow felt glee for that.

"Adams." He started. "I really like you. I'm sorry I picked you up the wrong way, but now I'm looking forward to see whatever this is can go and grow." He said, reaching for her hand to hold in his. "Will you give me the chance?" He asked when their eyes finally met.

Adams pulled her hand from Chase's hold and searched his eyes. When she saw the fallen look on his face, she cupped his face with both of her hands. Then, the least expected thing followed. Jessica Adams landed a soft and slow kiss on Robert Chase's cheek. She drew a small smile Chase had never seen before and kept one hand on his face. "Not today." She said and left the room.

Chase was left alone stunned and froze to his brain to process what had happened. It took him a while to realise Adam's invitation to try again. Chase left the room with a look that said his day couldn't have gone any better. Well, actually, there's plenty of ways his day could get any better, one of which if Jessica Adams ultimately agreed to marrying him, but that's a far long way to go from here.

That was when the relevation came upon Chase. The only way to get Adams' kiss and settle with the deal is the real way. He'll have to commit. He'll have to play by the naive and hopeless romantic's rule. He'll have to cut off his social activities with the ladies. He spent two cases trying to decide if the deal was worth any of it and the next case and half case after the next case trying

On the other side of the hospital, Foreman, Taub and Park passed an accomplished look among themselves and mouthed, "Mischief managed."


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

The Firsts.

 **Attractions.**

The first moment Dr. Robert Chase thought that Dr. Jessica Adams was attractive was the first time he saw her on his first day back on House's Diagnostic team. Of course, back then he did not realized that he was attracted to her. He just automatically followed the flow of the ongoing discussion, grabbed a chair and set it next to Adams. It was not a big deal. Everybody would sit next to attractive people once in a while. A little while after, during the case solving throughout the week, they would make small talks to each other to pass the time, more on Chase's part than Adam's. If they ever crossed paths on their way to the office, initially they would exchange acknowledging glances, followed by a fast-drawn and curt smile and later followed by an actual single syllable _'hi'_. They did not do very good in being social around each other at start. Once can say that they only look good together when they are situated together.

They managed to evolve, fortunately. Chase and Adams finally got to exchange a complete sentences came the new week after their very much awkward week crossing paths. Their greetings had still remained as simple as possible, ranging from the original _'Hi,'_ to _'Hello,'_ and _'Good morning,'_ If the day has gotten hectic or a patient threw another unlikely symptom, their interactions would probably went by two probabilities.

Exhibit A; one of them will say, _"Have you heard?"_ and the other will reply, _"Yeah,"_ and they would both scramble to the ward.

Exhibit B; one of them would ask, _"What is it?"_ and the other will reply, _"Not what we think it is,"_ and they would either rush into the ward or into the office. It went on for a while even after they had evolved to a much higher level of intellectual conversations.

Until one day when Adams had decided to once again take matters in her own hands. It was a couple of months since their established engagement of their relationship, the day at the hospital had been intense and both Chase and Adams were dressed magnificently to confuse everyone in the hospital. Chase was about to enter the elevator from the cafeteria to his office when Adams grabbed him by his arm and pushed him up against the wall. That stunt caught both of them by surprised; it had surprised Adams how out of the world Chase was that she could easily rough him up, she usually could not do so, and it had surprised Chase how strong she could be. Nothing surprised him more that day than what had come next.

"Dr. Chase, we have to stop meeting like this," she whispered into his ears.

"But it was so much fun this way," he mocked House's possible response in reply for her being a tease that she was. Not long after, that became their ritual for a long time until they were busted and intervened with multiple 'Get a room,' by mostly Taub and Park (sometimes Foreman, too) before they decided to keep it subtle and professional.

On Dr. Jessica Adam's part, she found Dr. Robert Chase attractive the week she was going to ask him out for a drink just to be shot down. After that, she was trying to reconstruct her self-esteem by focusing on her work and gave absolutely no regard to men in her workplace. It worked excellently until Chase got stabbed by a scalpel to his heart by a patient. That did a little damage on her shimmering pride to not caring about Chase, but she did not went down without any fight, sure she climbed onto the stroller with her fingers pressing onto the pierced heart of his but she managed to do that professionally without crying hysterically for him not to die on her. It was very professional and not at all emotional.

It had hurt Adams when she distinctively overheard Chase confronting House about Moira being his possible love of his life. She did not exactly imagined it was her name that would come out of his mouth to be his said love and she certainly did not expect him to silently harboring mad crushes for her in return, but like every other crushes, it hurt like the most painful death when you found out your crush have a crush on somebody else. The next few weeks were spent on another attempt to regard Chase as _just another rather attractive man she knew at work_ and House noticed it but decided to shrug it off. Although he kept the teasing of Chase and Adams to a minimum, someone else caught up with House's legacy and went on playing matchmaker with them, only this time Adams really lost all items that she put as attractive attributes to Chase.

It was by the end of their first date Adams had allowed Chase to be attractive again from her perspective. Despite of what she thought of _firsts and baggage_ , they cleared all of theirs on that date and it turned out to be quite a fun date after all.

"I didn't think bringing up baggage on the first date is such a good idea," she said as her hand still lingered on his even when they had reached her doorstep. "But I am glad to be proven wrong." she admitted.

"Anything's a good idea if you're doing it with the right person." he gave her a look that she had not received in a long time and it made her heart tugged closer to him.

 **Kiss.**

Their first kiss had been accidental but sober. Romantic but somber all the same. When it happened, it happened as if all of the forces that had ever existed willed for it to happen. The lights simmered down to just the right about to highlight their beauties basked in each other's embrace, the dark humbled before them to hide every doubt and insecurities inhibiting them of it and the air, oh the air, how love filled the air that sunset by the beach.

Their first kiss happened long before their first date. It happened on one summer vacation that it had been decreed Chase and Adams shall meet on the most clichéd place possible for sparks to fly. Chase was off surfing again and Adams was working on a tan and trying out sunbathing for once in her life. Neither of them thought of meeting the other there, they have not exactly reached the point of trading summer vacations information at work. Apparently their paths crossed at the same place they both happened to be spending time when not surfing nor sunbathing.

It was Chase who brought Adams back from a long stare to the midst of the ocean and started the conversations. It started small at first with several awkward pauses and changing through topics. After a while their talk got longer and pauses got shorter, then, before they knew it, Chase was bursting into fits of laughter at Adam's unintended mispronounced words and jokes, she was giggling and sometimes cackling to Chase's ridiculous puns and silly attempts at bravado. It was unbelievable how summer vacation can work their magic on anyone.

Chase and Adams had been inseparable. Soon after their newfound budding friendship, their friendship blossomed into something else. They were talking as always on the day of their first kiss, trading _'Remember the time?'_ stories on each other and lazily drawing on the sand side by side. They were wondering what would happen when it was all over. When they would get back at the hospital. Would this be a fling or a blossoming romance? Neither of them were sure which of them said the definitive line that was responsible for their actions, but both of them heard a distant voice whispering to them softly, _"Why worry of the future when you have a beautiful moment to live in? Let the future unravel itself as it always will. Live."_

How did it feel for Adams? It felt like firework flaming from the inside. For a hopeless romantic like herself, it had been exactly how she knew first kisses to be. It staged her some kind of excitement yet had impaled her with excruciating fright and nervousness, it had blessed her with faith to embrace her hopelessness in romance yet doomed her to its mercy and it had pounded her heart with tantalizing sensation but yet wrenched it with anticipation. How did it feel for Chase? It felt painfully beautiful. Just the way he thought it would be.

 **A/N: Hey, what do you know? I'm still alive and I've decided to use what's remaining of my summer vacation to pick up where I left these babies. Thank you all for your reviews. I cannot tell you how much they are all appreciated. Hee, I'm sorry I took my time to update, so I hope the length makes up about a half or quarter of it. Anyways, any prompts, reviews and constructive criticism are very much welcomed!**


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